Hardware Things: Interoperable energy systems
Hello there,
Hope you had a good month.
You may have noticed that the link under the Company Spotlight section goes to a protected post in the last few newsletters. It goes to a 650-word profile of the same company written by me and available to newsletter patrons. I think you might like the content.
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Things I Enjoyed Reading
Last month had a lot of interesting conferences. The Africa Open Science and Hardware (AfricaOSH) community gathered in Dar es Salaam with a strong focus on biomaking and developing open science technology. While there isn’t a lot of reporting of the event, they’re a very active community on Twitter and next year’s conference is in Yaoundé.
I’m a big fan of the guys at the Nupe Project, an industrial design outfit in Lagos who’ve done some interesting work recently for JAZA Energy in Tanzania. Ventures Africa caught up with them this past month.
Emergency medicine has seen some innovation recently in West Africa and I’ve been following some of them, I caught up with a couple of my favourite (SnooCODE, LifeBank and CardioPad) in this story for OZY.
Autodesk is really serious about generative design. Philippe Stark’s chair has probably been discussed more than a million times this month alone. What I find quite interesting is the potential for much better thermal analysis that can help, for example, to reduce materials by 25% in a clinker cooler.
Interesting Things
An open source system for small scale chemical synthesis.
A selective powder recoater for multimaterial 3D printing.
Finding directions with Bluetooth.
Circuit Python from Adafruit is now on Codecademy.
Things to Apply For
Join 10 top hardware and deep tech startups from Africa on an a manufacturing tour of Asia to grow your business, powered by CcHUB and Google Startups. Apply here.
If you’re developing some hardware with a plan to go to market and need some expert mentorship, check out Hardware Lagos’ Advisory Board programme which closes applications today. Read more and apply
Company Spotlight
In Ghana, Cibus Technologies is developing interoperable energy systems built to power rural communities using waste, hydro-power or axial flow turbines. Built to be assembled using only Allen Keys, the systems can also be deployed in households.
🔒 Read more about this technology.
Tweet of the Month
Some eye candy.
Heading to @makerfairemiami to talk about building free-formed circuit sculptures. This will be my first time giving a talk on this. I’m trying to bring in as many sculptures as I can. I hope they survive the trip!
And some cause for reflection.
Its very difficult to be an African startup. All the data & statistics you’d be looking for to assess your market’s size and value and the opportunity space’s ROI to pitch to investors is obscured by saviordom and donor interests. Little or no commercially oriented business data.
Other Things
I’m probably the last person in the world to geek out about this but heat-set inserts are really cool, especially if you’re placing metal parts in 3D prints; they function to offset plastic deformation.
Until next month, I’m nearby.
Chuma.
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